4 Rohingya youths admitted to CMCH with bullet wounds

They entered Bangladesh from Maungdaw after receiving gunshot injuries during the ongoing crackdown of the Myanmar army

Chittagong, Bangladesh -- Four Rohingya Muslim youths, all of them with gunshot wounds sustained during the army’s ongoing crackdown in Myanmar’s north-western Rakhine State, have been admitted to Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH).

Three of them were brought in from Cox’s Bazar’s Ukhiya upazila in the early hours of Sunday while the fourth arrived around 3pm, said CMCH police outpost’s Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Alauddin Talukder.

He said all of the four, identified as Ziabul, 27, Ilias, 20, Mobarak Hossain, 25, and Md Toha, 16, were from Rakhine’s Maungdaw.

Of them, Ilias was in critical condition with bullet wounds on his head and in one hand, said ASI Alauddin.

They were sent to CMCH after they were given first aid at Médecins Sans Frontières hospital at the Kutupalong refugee camp.

Two other Rohingya youths were also admitted to CMCH on Saturday with bullet injuries. However, one of them later died.

The crackdown on Rohingyas started after insurgents wielding guns, sticks and homemade bombs attacked 30 police posts and an army base in the border state of Rakhine and killed 12 security personnel in the early hours of Friday.

While thousands of Rohingya Muslims attempted to flee across the border to Bangladesh, the death toll, according to the Myanmar government, since then has climbed to 98, including some 80 insurgents, reports Reuters.

Rakhine is bisected by religious hatred focused on the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority, who are reviled and perceived as illegal immigrants in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

The Myanmar government on Sunday said at least 4,000 non-Muslim villagers were evacuated amid the ongoing clashes in Rakhine, reports Reuters.

Fighting involving the military and hundreds of Rohingya across Rakhine continued on Saturday with the fiercest clashes taking place on the outskirts of the major town of Maungdaw, according to residents and the government.

Bracing for more violence, thousands of Rohingyas – mostly women and children – were trying to forge the Naf river separating Myanmar and Bangladesh and the land border as gunfire could be heard from the Myanmar side on Sunday, Bangladesh Border Guard officials said.

Around 2,000 people crossed into Bangladesh since Friday, according to estimates by Rohingya refugees living in the makeshift camps on this side of the border. But fresh clashes triggered another rush of Rohingyas towards the no man’s land between the countries on Sunday.

The violence marked a dramatic escalation of a conflict that has simmered in the region since last October, when a similar but much smaller Rohingya attack prompted a brutal military operation dogged by allegations of serious human rights abuses.